


Tit for Tat

by Deannie



Category: Good Omens
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-06-20
Updated: 2003-06-20
Packaged: 2017-12-18 09:31:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/878309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Balance must be maintained...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tit for Tat

Roads were perhaps not as clean as they could be in the late nineteenth century. But then again, they had been the most horrible eyesores in the sixteen hundreds, and Aziraphale rather thought that the human race had done a great deal of work on them in the intervening decades. At least now, people thought to clean up after their carriages. 

As he strolled down a relatively tidy avenue in West London, he sighed with angelic long-suffering as a raggedly-dressed man in his middle years (those being the ones between 25 and 30, as he had not more than a couple of decades left to him before he was run over by a rather poorly-driven Model-T) neatly side-stepped the heavenly being's walking companion and rammed straight into Aziraphale's broad chest. 

"Excuse me," Aziraphale apologized. He hadn't been at fault, of course, but then, human beings rarely took responsibility for not seeing that which should be invisible in the first place. "I wasn't watching where you were going." 

The man ignored the comment, searching Aziraphale's eyes. 

"The end is nigh," he whispered brokenly. "The end is nigh! _The end is nigh!_ " 

He was getting a bit loud now, truth be told (and of course, for Aziraphale, it always was). Crowley, the angel's walking companion and supposed nemesis, stepped forward, laying a hand on the distraught human's shoulder. "Actually--" 

"If that's the case," Aziraphale cut in cleanly. "Then perhaps you'd better see to your affairs? I'm certain that the gold you have stashed in your cupboard could be put to good use? Perhaps the orphanage on the hill?" He smiled beatifically. "I'm certain you'd be rewarded in the afterlife." Well, all right, so he was also certain the man wouldn't quite make it to Heaven, but Purgatory was somewhat less lacking in amenities than certain other afterlives he knew. 

The man searched the angel's eyes again, finding the fear of God, conveniently put there for just such a purpose. He shook all over, rather like a mutt who's smelled something rank, and hurried off home. After all, the nuns at the orphanage could always use a bit more money--fine gilt icons and priceless tapestries notwithstanding. 

Crowley frowned. "Was that necessary?" he asked coldly. 

Aziraphale gifted _him_ a rather blessed smile, which was ignored with a facility that only demons seem to possess. "I do have a job, you know?" 

"But you lied. Isn't that... cheating?" 

"At no time did I confirm that the world is ending." 

"Sin of omission," Crowley muttered. 

Aziraphale feigned shock. "Bite your tongue." 

Crowley was lucky that he was a demon, or indeed, he would have. 

Miffed, he stalked silently ahead. That man would have become a properly bitter old miser (well, a rather young miser, given his fate) when the world failed to end just after tea time on Tuesday next. He would have taught his children the same vicious ways, and one of his grandsons would have grown up to run a rather shady and destructive iron smelting factory. It would have caused in excess of 1500 deaths. Mostly children! 

"I'll get you back," he muttered blackly, as the angel caught up to him, strolling pleasantly along. So smug was the heavenly being, in fact, that he neglected to note a small, frail young woman who was destined to start a well-known and highly-publicized move toward the end of child labor in the Western world. 

Crowley rubbed his hands together unpleasantly, approaching the waif. 

"Excuse me..." 

And again, the scales were balanced. 

* * *  
the end


End file.
